About Us

C3 Initiative

Competencies

Career Pathways

Collaboration

Vision

C3’s vision is to elevate New Mexico through excellence in adult education.

Mission

C3 is a program-to-program mentoring initiative that provides leadership and support to adult education programs and establishes effective collaborative partnerships, competency-based practice, and career pathways programming.

Background

Adult Education is now governed by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act (WIOA), which is mandating a seismic shift in adult education practices to support students to concurrently learn the academic, technical, and professionalism skills essential for success in careers and life.

Our Purpose

The purpose of the C3 Initiative is to support the adoption of College and Career Readiness Standards (CCRS) and Career Pathways (CP) curriculum and practices using a Mentor Program model that strengthens programs and builds New Mexico Adult Education leadership and capacity. CCRS and CP programming and practices are inherently intertwined. Collaboration – with WIOA partners and among adult education programs - is central to the Initiative’s success.

Specific Outcomes

• A website of resources is created containing foundational reading and practice-based tools that demonstrate research in practice in CCRS, CP, and Collaboration;
• Each participating program implements and documents career pathways programming, based on WIOA’s 7 defining elements of CP programming, designed to enhance students’ academic and professionalism skills;
• Teachers develop, implement, and document curriculum and lessons based on CCRS “key advances” in practice: depth, rigor, text complexity, building knowledge, evidence, focus, coherence, and rigor;
• A rubric is collectively developed that identifies professionalism and soft skills competencies; this forms the basis for portfolios for student professionalism outcomes;
• Core team, with field input, creates the evidenced-based criteria for Program and Teacher Micro-Credentialing of CCRS/CP competence;
• Leadership and capacity in the New Mexico Adult Education field are enhanced as directors and teachers take on the active role of mentoring and supporting each other.

Project Phases

The C3 Initiative is a three-year process. The first phase, launched in October 2016, is designed for the mentor programs to build their own expertise in standards, career pathways, and the development of WIOA partners. The second phase, to start in July 2017, begins the actual mentoring of other programs. Years II and III strengthen leadership capacity with mentee programs becoming mentors of others. During the life of the project, participants will be creating a resource collection of research and tools, citing best practices and demonstrating the ways New Mexico Adult Education puts the research into practice.

The Model

The core of the Mentor Program model is programs supporting programs to succeed. Four mentor programs, each made up of a director and at least two teachers, facilitate a cohort or “pod” of two to three mentee programs each, also comprised of administrators and instructors. The guiding principles of this model include:

• We create and sustain program improvement with the decision-makers (program directors) and the doers (teachers) working together, in an integrated, coordinated way;
• We learn best by teaching;
• We build from what we already know and do;
• We learn in small communities that provide sustained and ongoing support;
• We are compensated for our efforts.

The Mentor-Program Teams (for Phase 1 in alpha order)

• Albuquerque-GED, Inc (ABQ-GED)
  • Education Director: Jamie Trujillo
• San Juan College
  • ACE Program Director: Jenny Lambert-Beaty
  • C3 Mentors: Erin Carney, Melissa Gonzales, Jennifer Maestas-Martinez
• Taos Education and Career Center (TECC) at UNM-Taos: Lead in the C3 Initiative
  • C3 Project Director and Program Director, TECC: Judy Hofer
  • C3 Mentors: Nina Gonzales, Montserrat Oyanedel-Tolmo, and Faith Schauermann